404 the story of a page not found Renny Gleeson
so what I want to try to do is tell a
quick story about a 404 page and a
lesson that was learned as a result of
it but to start it probably helps to
have an understanding of what a 404 page
actually is the 404 page is that it’s
that broken experience on the web it’s
effectively the default page when you
ask a website for something and it can’t
find it and it serves you the 404 page
it’s inherently a feeling of being
broken when you go through it and I just
want you to think a little bit about
remember for yourself
it’s annoying right when you hit this
thing because it’s the feeling of a
broken relationship and that’s where
it’s actually also interesting to think
about where does 404 come from it’s from
a family of errors actually a whole set
of relationship errors which when I was
started digging into them it looks
almost like a checklist for a sex
therapist or a couple’s counselor you
sort of get down there to the bottom and
things get really dicey but before
before yes but these things are
everywhere they’re on sites big they’re
on site small this is a global
experience what a 404 page tells you is
that you fell through the cracks that’s
not a good experience when you’re used
to experiences like this right you can
get on your Kinect and you can have
unicorns dancing and things you know
rainbows spraying out of your mobile
phone a 404 page is not what you’re
looking for you get that and it’s like a
slap in the face like I’m just trying to
think about how a 404 felt and it would
be like if you if you went to Starbucks
and there’s the guy behind the counter
and you’re over there and yet there’s no
skim milk and you say hey could you
could you bring the skim milk and I walk
out from behind the counter and they got
no pants on and you’re like oh I didn’t
want to see that that’s that’s the 404
feeling
I mean I’ve heard about that so where
this comes into play and why this is
important is I head up a technology
incubator we had eight startups sitting
around there and those startups are
focused on what they are not what
they’re not until one day a flee path
which is a website that focuses on
services for extreme athletes found this
video no he’s not okay all right
they took that they took that video and
they embedded it in their 404 page and
there was it was like a light bulb went
off for everybody in the place because
finally there was a page that actually
felt like what it felt like to hit a 404
so this turned into a contest daily path
had offers inspiration put inspiration
on there 404 page stay hound which helps
you find pet sitters through your social
network commiserated with your pet right
now each one of them found this it
turned into a 24 hour contest at 404 the
next day we gave out four hundred and
four dollars in cash and what they
learned was that those little things
done right actually matter and at
well-designed moments can build brands
so you take a look out in the real world
and you can the fun thing is you can
actually hack these yourself you can
type in an earl and put in 404 and these
open these will pop this is one that
commiserate with you this is one that
blames you this is one that I loved it
said this is an error page but what if
this error page was also an opportunity
right so it was a moment in time where
all of these startups had to sit and
think and got really excited about what
they could be because back to the whole
relationship issue what they figured out
through exercise was that a simple
mistake can tell me what you’re not or
it can remind me of why I should love
you thank you